Judgment From Experience

Good judgment comes from experience, which often comes from bad judgment." One sees that quote in many places and, on one level, its easy to understand. The irony is one must obtain some experience before understanding it on other levels. Like most young aspiring pilots of the day, I was building time flight instructing. This was in the early 1960s, when the trainer of choice was the Piper Colt. This was a very forgiving airplane, even though it didnt look like one. After shepherding a student through his private certificate, he purchased half interest in a Bonanza. He needed 25 hours of training to satisfy the insurance company, so off we went. After the required training, I endorsed his logbook. Soon, however, I watched him make a very short pattern with steep turns. Despite lecturing him many times on the respect he must have for this aircraft, I decided to show him first-hand.

Key Takeaways:

• An experienced flight instructor, attempting to teach a student a lesson about respecting a powerful Bonanza aircraft, inadvertently put the plane into an uncontrolled spin during a simulated maneuver.
• The intended demonstration quickly escalated into a critical emergency, resulting in a terrifying vertical dive and a recovery performed perilously close to the ground.
• The instructor credits their survival to one prior good decision—climbing to 4000 feet instead of 3000—which provided just enough altitude for a successful recovery.
• The incident underscores the article's opening quote, highlighting how a near-fatal experience born from poor judgment ultimately contributed to the instructor's extensive future experience.

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